


Twister

by Alifredson



Series: Together Again [5]
Category: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers
Genre: All of Tommy’s stuff keeps getting destroyed, Chance Meetings, F/M, Kim’s a mom (sort of), Severe weather, Tornado Aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24599506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alifredson/pseuds/Alifredson
Summary: Tommy’s bad luck with severe weather turns out to be good luck after all.
Relationships: Kimberly Hart/Tommy Oliver
Series: Together Again [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1509686
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Twister

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to my good friend and her husband who both claim that they will one day achieve Doctoral level degrees for the sole purpose of forcing people who send them mail to address said mail to “The Doctors [Lastname].”
> 
> I forgot I wrote this and I re-found it tonight and it made me squeal, so I’m posting it. To be perfectly honest, I write these stories so I can go back and re-read them because there are entirely too few T/K stories out there. Now I can’t lose this again and I can come back and read it any time I want to. :-P

He’d thought he’d picked the perfect state, but crouching low to the ground in an underground tunnel, a collapsed beam less than a foot from his head, Tommy thought that Tennessee might not be ideal weather-wise either.

The previous six months or so had been one upheaval after another. First, it had been Jason, the last of the Mighty Morphin Rangers still living in California, outside of Tommy, deciding to move clear across the country for a job in New York the beginning of April. The final battle against Mesogog had been hot on the tail of Jason’s move. In May, his parents had stopped by for a visit on a rainy Saturday afternoon to tell him that they were planning on moving back to New Jersey, now that they were both retired. Finally, as Tommy wrestled with whether he wanted to renew his contract or move on to another position, the decision had been quite taken out of his hands when an earthquake had destroyed his house. 

Enough had been enough. As of June when the kids graduated from high school, and with the exception of Hayley, he wouldn’t have a single person to tie him to California. He was living out of an apartment on a month by month basis with less than half of his pre-earthquake belongings, he didn’t love Reefside, and he was itching for a fresh start. So, he informed the school board and Principal Randel that he wouldn’t be returning the next year and began applying for jobs all over the country.

He’d ended up with several offers, mostly from public high schools in urban areas that were only willing to pay him a pittance that wouldn’t even cover rent for his working months, but a few from private schools that were willing to pay a little more. 

He’d ended up accepting a job in Tennessee. It was the second highest offer he’d gotten and, since the school was in a suburban area, Tommy’s dollar would stretch further. 

The job, when he’d applied for it, had been an outlier as compared to his other applications. The school was a private joint elementary and middle school, whose students attended on invitation only. It was for students gifted in the arts, but Tommy was surprised to see that their science and math scores were higher than the statewide and national average as well. 

The move had been a breeze. Tommy had loaded what he could into his Jeep and the rest, mostly furniture, had been loaded up by a moving company who would deliver his belongings to his new apartment in Tennessee. He’d arrived in late June, gotten his keys and moved in what had fit in his car, signed paperwork at the school, and within three days, his other belongings had been delivered and he’d begun to unpack. 

He’d spent the summer leisurely exploring his new area and getting ready for the school year. He’d spent a week vacation in Nashville with Jason who’d flown in to visit and another week at the beach in Cape May, New Jersey, staying in his grandmother’s old beach house that his parents now owned and called home.

Tennessee had seemed almost perfect. There weren’t hurricanes, like he knew his parents began to worry at least a little about as the fall had approached. There wasn’t a constant threat of earthquakes, like he’d become used to in California. There wasn’t massive snows or overly cold winters as he’d suffered through in Michigan for college. The only problem was that it was maybe a little overly warm in the summer, without a large body of water to cool down the air. 

But Tommy had air conditioning, so he could live with that. 

That’s why the tornado had taken him so by surprise. 

To be fair, the first week in September was really outside the normal season for tornados, so Tommy, teaching his class of third graders about dinosaurs, had frozen at the sound of the tornado alarms and it had only been the sound of the other teachers and students in the hall that had pushed him to action, leading his group out and counting them all several times along the way. 

There were three buildings on campus and underground tunnels connected their basements- a Cold War Era precaution, said the most prevalent rumor. 

So, they all hunkered down and waited for the all clear. Instead, the ceilings had creaked and they could hear the screaming of the tornado as it bore down on their school. Tommy wasn’t sure how long it had sat overtop of them. By the time it moved on he felt like he’d aged forty years, but it couldn’t have sat there for more than a minute or two at most. Crouched down, able to see angry grey sky where there had before been the protection of the tunnel ceiling, Tommy counted his class again, relieved to have them all with him still, and tried to find a way out.   
__________

It had started as a normal day for Kim. She’d woken just after 6AM, gone downstairs and done thirty minutes of yoga until she heard Mary’s alarm clock go off. She’d then gone into the kitchen, throwing bread in the toaster and making coffee. After Mary had eaten, they both sat on the front porch, drinking coffee until the school bus came, Kim waving to her niece as she relaxed on the front porch and people watched. 

After a while, she’d gone back inside to go over the data she’d collected over the summer months, composed an email with part of what might be a hypothesis, and sent it off to Joe, taking a break while she waited for him to respond with his thoughts. She’d looked out the window, surprised to see the sky so grey when it had been so sunny that morning.

She walked out into the yard, staring up at the clouds for a few minutes before she’d run back inside grabbed her laptop and started pulling up current radar information over her area.

This was perfect tornado weather, completely out of season and on a day that hadn’t, at its inception, shown any warning signs.   
She called several numbers, putting them on alert. 

Then she waited. There was nothing she could do but watch.   
__________

The tornado had been big- she’d seen it barreling toward her street and had put a call through to the National Weather Service as she ran for cover in the basement. She could hear the tornado alarms start up and she only hoped that her warning was early enough that the school two streets over had enough time to take cover. If the tornado kept the course she had seen it taking, it would come dangerously close to both her house and that school.

She heard it move past her. While she heard glass breaking somewhere above her, it didn’t sound like the tornado had taken down her house, which she could be thankful for. After a few minutes she crept upstairs, knowing the entire time that she should stay put but too worried about her neighbors and the school down the street. 

She went outside. The opposite side of the street was decimated. She ran along the row of houses, yelling to see if anyone yelled back, but she didn’t hear anything. She knew that the older couple across the street were visiting their grandchildren in Delaware- she was watering their plants for them- and the other neighbors she knew on that side of the street all worked outside the house full time, so they were more than likely in offices somewhere, hoping their home would still be standing when they got home. Kim followed the destructive path of the tornado, yelling, then waiting to hear if anyone yelled back. She helped pull a woman and her toddler, both completely unscathed, out of a basement, and managed to acquire an absolutely terrified kitten along the way, which refused to let her put it down and ended up hunkering down in the hood of her sweatshirt, until it had run off hours later. 

The school, when she got to it, had been completely leveled. 

“Can anyone hear me?” She yelled. “Does anyone need help?”

“Over here! Please! Help! Over here!” A voice began calling. Several more followed. 

She found the closest voice, right in the middle of an open field between two of the school buildings, in a hole in the ground. She called out again as she got closer, and the voice of the woman responded. “Be careful! We’re all in tunnels that run under campus. The roof collapsed, so I’m not sure how stable it is once you get over to us.” Kim got as close as she could before the ground seemed less stable, then laid on her stomach and started pulling out students handed up to her by the teacher. 

Seven students in, several people from the nearby neighborhoods started flooding in with ladders and rope and Kim worked with one group after another, pulling up students and adults. 

She’d been at it for two hours when she got the shock of her life. She’d been calling out again, trying to find other teachers and students that were still trapped. The reports from the rescued indicated that the tunnels seemed to have collapsed in several places, cutting some groups off from the others, and there were still twelve classes that had yet to be located. 

Kim made her way toward the applied arts and science building- Mary had just graduated from this school in May after having attended it for seven years, so Kim knew the campus well. There, covered in debris, just off the side of the building, there was another open hole in the earth, but this one looked too precarious for her or the other rescuers to get to. 

“Hello? Is anywhere down in that tunnel?” She yelled. 

“Yes!” A male voice called back, sounding distressed. “Please, help! I have an eight-year-old down here having trouble breathing! There’s a door back into the school, but we can’t get it opened.”

“Hold on.” She yelled back. She tried to get closer, but earth began crumbling as soon as she touched it. “I’m going to try to see if I can find the door and get it open.”

Kim backtracked to the foundation wall of the school, using all of her strength to push debris out of the way to make a safe path for the kids to evacuate through once she found a way to get to them. Once in the footprint of the school building, Kim was able to rather quickly find the staircase down into the old basement and the tunnel system, but the tornado had dumped quite a lot into the area. There were desks, sections of floor, pieces of 2x4 wood- all pushed up against the door that the teacher and his students were trapped behind. She made her way methodically through, trying her best to be quick and clear a path while also making sure that the debris wouldn’t just collapse around her, blocking their path out. After another twenty minutes, she’d made it to the door and finally had removed the last of several cinderblocks that were keeping the door from being opened. The door could only be opened so much, but she hoped it’d be enough to evacuate everyone. 

She moved so that she could see inside and found the most familiar eyes staring back at her. “Tommy?” She gasped.

“Kim?” He’d sounded equally shocked, but had shaken himself out of it quickly. “I have two classes in here. The other teacher is hurt, and I’m going to have to carry him out. We need to get the kids out first. I think the ceiling is going to collapse before long.”

Kim glanced out into the bit of basement she’d cleared and up the concrete stairs. Several other rescuers had arrived to help. “We need to make an assembly line,” she called out to them, “so we can get these kids out and to safety quickly. We might have some who can’t walk themselves. You,” she pointed to a man near the top of the stairs, “I need you to find a safe place these kids can be gathered until their teachers can account for all of them.” He nodded, heading off toward the field in between the schools. 

She turned back to Tommy, who was already pushing a first child into her arms. “She needs an inhaler,” he said. “She has asthma.”   
Kim relayed the message, to the man next to her and passed the girl off, to be run to safety. Then, slowly, a stream of kids were placed in Kim’s arms, one at a time. The ones who could walk were directed up the stairs, the small battalion of volunteers directing them to safety. Others had to be carried out. It took over a half hour and Kim lost count after thirty children, but Tommy finally told her that this kid was the last as he passed the shaking boy into her arms. She passed the boy off, telling the rest of the volunteers to try to clear the doorway a little more as they had two adults, one injured, still inside. 

“Let me help,” she said, grabbing Tommy’s arm through the doorway as he tried to work his way through the collapsed beams blocking up the entryway on the tunnel side. 

He turned, squeezed her hand, and said, “no, I’ll find a way to move him. I’m afraid this is going to collapse. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“It’ll be better for you to have an extra set of hands. It’ll be quicker with two of us.” She slipped inside the door before he could stop her. “Anyway, this has sort of become part of my job.”

She assumed that Tommy realized just how short on time they were, because he didn’t fight her. Instead, he ducked under a beam, reaching out a hand to help her around it as well. “You in medicine?” He asked. 

“No, I’m a meteorologist and a storm chaser. When my crew chases during the season, we spend more time doing rescue and recovery than we do actually getting data on the storms.”

Tommy hummed in acknowledgment and after ducking under and worming over several more collapsed beams, they found the other teacher. 

There was a cut on the other man’s head, but he seemed coherent enough all the same as he recognized and acknowledged both his rescuers. “Dr. Oliver, are the kids out?” He told them that they were. “Oh, Dr. Hart. That was some tornado.”

“It had to be at least an F3,” she agreed. She could see that the man was holding his right arm stiffly and his right foot was bent at a weird angle. He was probably only conscious because he was running on adrenaline. 

“Alright Mr. Matthews, lets get you out of here.” She said, moving towards his legs, Tommy moving behind the man to lift his torso. “This is going to hurt like hell,” she warned, “but we’ll get you out of here.”

Tommy was crouched down, his arms wrapped around Mr. Matthews’s torso and hands clasped over his chest. Kim similarly crouched by his legs, one arm under his knees while the other was just above his ankles. “On three,” Tommy said, to her. 

“One,” Kim said.

“Two,” Tommy counted.

“Three,” they said together, standing. Mr. Matthews yelled in pain and passed out. 

“Probably for the best,” Kim said, shuffling sideways down the tunnel.   
__________

The EMTs insisted upon checking Kim out as well. Tommy was amused as she argued with them. “I wasn’t trapped down there. I just pulled people out.”

“And half a tunnel wall collapsed on you,” the paramedic argued back, trying to look at the cut on her head. 

“It didn’t collapse on me.”

“Kim, all the kids have been taken care of. Everyone else who’s hurt already has been taken to hospitals. Let him check you over.”  
She huffed in annoyance. 

“The sooner you let me look at this,” the paramedic reasoned, “the sooner you can leave.” Kim finally gave a reluctant nod for him to examine her head. 

“Is the high school okay, do you know?” She asked. 

“Yeah,” the paramedic said. “We passed it on the way here. They were still under lockdown, but the whole building was standing… just a couple of broken windows. And I haven’t heard of anymore tornados being spotting since that one blew out.” Kim hissed as the man pressed on her cut. “It’s not deep and you don’t have a concussion, but it’s going to feel bad and look worse for several days. You’re good to go though.” 

Kim got up, turning to Tommy and pulling him further away from the emergency responders who were now packing up. Tommy wondered what time it was. His phone was gone and his watch had been cracked and was no longer working. He realized that the parking lot they were standing on was the one he’d parked his Jeep in this morning. “Well damn.” His laugh sounded a little hysterical, even to him. “I lose a house to an earthquake and my car to a tornado. God, I hope my apartment building is still standing. I can’t stand the thought of having to buy all new furniture again.”

Kim squeezed his hand. “Tommy, are you okay?” He nodded, but bit his lip to try to keep his emotions under control. The adrenaline was wearing off and he vaguely realized that shock might be starting to hit him. “How far do you live from here?”

“Far side of the highway. Near the Kohl’s.”

“I don’t think the tornado ever touched down until it got on this side of the highway, so it should be fine. You might have trouble making your way back there tonight, though.” She tugged at his hand and he followed her without question. “You are starting to go into shock. I live just around the corner and my house made it out alright. Come with me. We’ll find a way to get you to your apartment tomorrow, okay?”

He nodded numbly and walked around the perimeter of what used to be the school campus, then down a side street into a neighborhood.   
Tommy vaguely recognized that he’d driven through these streets earlier in the summer, marveling at the large houses and perfectly kept lawns. They turned onto a street where, on one side, all the buildings were demolished. On the other, the houses still stood, albeit with debris thrown into yards, broken windows here and there. 

Kim pulled him up to a white house, a long, covered porch fronting it. She led him inside and the screen door had barely closed behind him when a brunette girl, taller than Kim, more or less tackled the petite woman in front of him. He had sense enough to brace Kim, keeping them all upright. “Oh thank God, Aunt Kim! I was freaking out when I couldn’t find you!”

“Are you alright?” Kim asked, hugging the girl to her.

“Yeah, just a little shaken. Mrs. Dormer said RSA…?”

“Completely levelled,” Kim confirmed. “That’s where I’ve been.” She reached back and grabbed his hand again. “This is Tommy, he’s an old friend and just started teaching at RSA. He’s going to be staying tonight until we can get him home. Tommy, this is my niece, Mary.”

“Yeah, Aunt Kim. I know who Tommy is. You have enough pictures of him.” Mary teased. Tommy perked up at this accusation, surprised to hear it. “I hope you don’t mind… I already put the McMahons in the spare room and blew up the air mattress for the boys.”  
__________

Once they had gotten in the house earlier and Kim and Mary had each been satisfied that the other was okay, he’d been deposited on a plushily cushioned wicker chair in a little room just off the kitchen. A glass of water had been given to him and Mary had draped a blanket over his lap and another around his shoulders as Kim had gone upstairs to greet her other guests and to change into clean clothes. 

Once the adrenaline had completely worn off and his body began to let go of the stress of the day, he’d begun to feel tired and weary. It seemed that Kim was still able to read him well because she had led him, at that point, upstairs and into the master bathroom. 

“With the power out, we don’t have any hot water, but there’s a washcloth for you on the counter if you want to wash your face and try to get some of the dirt off. I put some clothes out for you to change into too.”

Tommy went back downstairs feeling much more like himself a half hour later, wearing sweatpants that were just his size and a slightly faded, zip front sweatshirt in green that Kim had stolen from him almost immediately after they had first started dating.

Another three people had been taken in by Kim and Mary in the meantime- a young couple and the man’s father. “Well, the grill survived,” Kim said to Mary and Tommy in the kitchen. “And with the electricity out, we should probably cook what we can in the fridge.” 

Tommy went out on the back deck and got the grill set up and warmed up while Kim and Mary pulled nearly anything that could be grilled out of the freezer and refrigerator. Kim brought out the assortment and she and Tommy spent twenty minutes working silently together on making dinner. 

“She’s Kenny’s daughter, isn’t she?” Tommy asked quietly. Kim just gave a sharp nod. “Did you know he had a kid? You never mentioned while we were dating.”

“I didn’t know,” Kim said, “but I guess my parents both did. My mom said that he tried to get both her and my dad to send him money and neither would. She offered to send formula, diapers, and all that, but he just kept saying he wanted money.”

“He wanted it for the drugs.”

“Yes. It’s amazing that Mary survived long enough to get to me. I guess Kenny’s girlfriend was just as addicted. Mary was born premature and hooked on cocaine when she was born. She was taken away by the state and treated and ended up making it, but they gave her right back to Kenny and his girlfriend once they’d each managed two consecutive clean scheduled drug tests. She would have been about two then. They had her for about two years before a neighbor called the police because they heard her crying. Kenny and his girlfriend had both OD-ed and Mary was really malnourished. Apparently, they had only wanted her back so they could get welfare benefits and mostly ignored her, giving her the bare minimum to keep her alive since she was their meal ticket.”

Tommy tried not to react as he slowly put together the pieces. “You were in Florida when Kenny overdosed.”

“Yes.”

“And you got Mary then, didn’t you?”

“I was the only option I guess.”

“What about your parents? Or the girlfriend’s parents?”

Kim shrugged. “I asked the same thing. I guess the girlfriend didn’t have any other family that the state was able to identify. My father refused to take Mary. We don’t speak anymore. He is determined that Mary will come to a bad end just because Kenny was her father and Kenny ended up being such a disappointment to him. The state refused to give custody to my mom unless she first re-established residence in the US. She was willing, but it would have taken time before they gave her custody, but I could take her as soon as I left the dorms. I had already graduated, I turned 18, and I had that inheritance left over from my grandpop, so I bought a little two bedroom house, moved in and got Mary.” Here she smiled. “It was hard, but we did okay. I had enough money to get by for almost a year and the coaches were okay with me bringing Mary to practice, so she came with me every day. She’d sit near the benches and color or read or tell stories to whoever was taking a break and willing to listen. My mom would visit for a few weeks every few months so I could take a break, but for the most part, it’s just been me and Mary. After the games, I jumped right into college and working- both full time, which was difficult. But I think we’ve done okay.”

“Well, Dr. Hart, I think you’ve done more than okay.” He reached out, hugging her to his side. “I’m really proud of you.”  
__________

Kim and Mary took in several more now homeless neighbors for the night, so Tommy ended up sharing Kim’s bed with her. Kim had laid stiffly next to him for several minutes before he’d blurted out, “I’m not mad, about the letter, I mean.” He’d turned on his side to face her.

“I understand why you wrote it. You had too much to worry about with Mary and gymnastics. Finding time for me would have been difficult, at best. You wouldn’t have had the energy.”

“But I should have. You were my everything…” 

Tommy thought of the many pictures he’d passed in the house. They could easily be split in two. Kim’s life before Mary- pictures of him and the teams, and pictures after Mary- almost exclusively of the girl. “Mary needed you.” Kim nodded and Tommy continued. “And you’ve done an amazing job raising her. The girl I met today is kind-hearted, responsible, creative, smart, quick-witted… so much like you. So, maybe it’s time you take your own life off pause. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you’ve devoted everything to her and nothing to yourself.”  
__________

Three days before Christmas, Jason Scott received the strangest piece of mail. It was a card, not uncommon considering the time of year. What struck him as strange was the return address stamped in the top left corner of the envelope. 

_The Doctors Oliver_

The only Olivers he knew were Tommy and his parents and neither of Tommy’s parents had ever earned a doctorate, although he knew his friend had. Discontent to ponder, he opened up the envelope to find a party invitation instead of the holiday cards he was more used to receiving. The front of the card simply said “2006” and was surrounded by streamers and other party accouterments. Opening the card, he found the white back of a photo, which he moved aside to read the handwritten note on the inside of the card. 

“The Doctors Oliver invite you to a New Years Eve Party in celebration of their recent marriage and the new year.” It then listed an address in Tennessee- Jason recognized the town, but it wasn’t the street address he’d recognized as belonging to Tommy’s apartment- and a 7PM start time with a phone number and email address where he could reply to the invitation. Jason flipped over the photo still in his other hand. In it, Tommy, his hair starting to grow out again, stood in a simple black suit with a white shirt and green tie, beaming down at the woman pulled close into his side. The woman beside him wore a knee length white dress, a pink crinoline below it, puffing the skirt out. 

Jason laughed at the picture, immediately picking up his phone and dialing the number to respond that he’d be at the party. “Well, I should have guessed you two would find your way back together,” he said as soon as he heard Kim’s voice answer. “Nothing ever could keep you two apart for long.”

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been on a meteorology kick with my audiobooks for a while and tornados terrify/fascinate me. This was written after we got our first tornado watch warning of the year in my state (where we rarely get severe tornados, but a twister touches down from time to time). Also note that the scale for identifying tornados switched to the EF scale sometime after this story, just because I know that someone will give me a hard time for saying the tornado was an F3 instead of an EF3.


End file.
